Quotes from Ellen Vaughn

Sometimes we look at outcomes in this life, seeking the reassurance of a happy ending, and it's just not there. What then? As Betty put it, His ways are inscrutable. So we have to rest, not in the peace of a pretty story, but in the reality of faith in a Person we cannot see.

Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.

Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain. If God were God, if He were omnipotent, if He had cared, would this have happened? Is this that I face now the ratification of my calling, the reward of obedience?

It was a long time before I came to the realization that it is in our acceptance of what is given that God gives Himself. Even the Son of God had to learn obedience by the things that He suffered . . . And His reward was desolation, crucifixion.

God does work through hurt. God works in the midst of all things.

Oh, how I pray for conforming to the acceptable will of God. I do not want to miss one lesson. Yet I find that events do not change souls. It is our response to them which finally affects us. - Elisabeth Elliot

Humility is perfect quietness of heart. It is to expect nothing, to

Being a good steward of time doesn't start with managing it better. It doesn't begin with being more organized, efficient, and disciplined. These are great virtues. But one can be the most organized person on the planet and still have a heart as cold as steel, locked tight as a heavy file cabinet, a heart that does not really acknowledge the master's rights to all those files.

How grateful I am to the Lord for giving me such a dear husband and baby. How much life means now—living for them, giving of myself to them, feeling myself needed by them. Of all hopelessly selfish people I should have been the worst had I remained single.

Healing unhealthy relationships with created things is not a management issue. It's a heart issue, a question of just where our highest allegiances lie.

When Christ's Cross is big in our mind's eye, our gratitude is big as well. In that mindset, being God's steward is not dull duty, but grateful obedience. We are Christ's glad bond slaves, like Paul, wild and full of joy, pressing on to use all we've been given — including our time — in the Master's service, and for His glory. After all, we know that He will come back any day now — and then time as we know it will be no more.